Royal's home turf - a snapshot of a future France?

But students in her region welcome the school project.

"These meetings give us new responsibility," said 17-year old student Antony Bianucci, after successfully defending his idea -- to buy new computers -- against calls for a pool table.

"I feel I can change things, even if they're small."

Despite a turnout of just six of the 1,500 students at the school in Angouleme, parent Marie Christine Perroy praised the project as an example of what Royal stood for.

"It's democracy in practice. That's Royal's style. I'm confident she can continue in this sense on a national level."

Royal was born in Senegal and has no family ties to Poitou-Charentes, but the rural region has nonetheless played a pivotal role in her career.

Her political idol, former Socialist President Francois Mitterrand, was born in the area. It was he who helped find her a parliamentary seat in the region and it was here she shot to national fame in 2004 when elected president of the regional council, winning on the home turf of Jean-Pierre Raffarin, the conservative prime minister at the time.

The region has an annual budget of some 630 million euros for education, infrastructure and economic projects, and Royal shuttles between Paris, where her partner and four children live, and west France, where she runs the region with firmness.

"The talk about a participatory budget ... is contradictory for someone who has a tendency to decide on her own," said Communist Simone Fayaud, one of Royal's allies on the council.

TREES AND SLIPPERS

Royal's regional vice-president and fellow Socialist Jean-Francois Fountaine said the region had become more open thanks to her, although he conceded she had sometimes failed to consult locally when she first arrived in office.

"It wasn't easy at the start but it's better now," he said.